SING IT LOUD!!!!

I love MUSIC! I LOVE to sing... I know that I am far from a "good" singer, but I still LOVE to sing! I am pretty sure that my family isn't very musically inclined either. When I grew up, I attended a Church of Christ for the Deaf in Austin. There was a handful of hearing people who attended there as well. So, when we did sing... we all thought we sounded pretty good (all 5 of the hearing people) and the deaf members could have cared less how we sounded so we sang loudly! My Dad actually lead the singing at this church too. I always grew up thinking that we were pretty good singers, then around middle school we moved to a bigger church.

My mom and I started attending a Baptist congregation ( my grandfather was a Baptist preacher.) I even SANG in their choir...... only for a brief period of time... no I wasn't kicked out or at least that isn't how I like to remember how things went down! Long story short.... we started attending Westover Hills Church of Christ in Austin. I found a place there and feel that is my church home aside from Altamesa.

We went back to visit over the July 4th weekend and there was a series that they were doing called "Behind the Music."
It is REALLY a special series and I tried to attach a link, but it is complicated and you have to scroll through a lot of the Sunday service to hear it.

http://www.westover.org/node/1754



Basically the purpose of this was to get past the "singing" of the songs and to focus on what we are REALLY singing.

How many of us from time to time sing the words just to sing them without REALLY paying attention to what we are REALLY saying to GOD.
HE is listening.... shouldn't we GET SERIOUS... ESPECIALLY since HE already knows our hearts and minds anyways! I MEAN REALLY.....why SING it if you don't MEAN it. By the way I am talking to myself more than anyone else right now! There are so many times that I zone out and pay attention more to what so and so is doing or wearing and etc. than to singing the words with meaning from my mind and heart.

1 Corinthians 14:15

15So what shall I do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my mind; I will sing with my spirit, but I will also sing with my mind

Each person has different spiritual gifts and GOD doesn't care HOW we sing, but we should TRULY mean what we are saying when we sing it. How would you feel if someone you knew lied about everything that they did... every word that came out of their mouth was a lie. Would you want to talk to them? This makes me wonder how GOD feels when we sing without TRULY meaning the words that are coming out of our mouths.

EACH song has a meaning.. each word has a meaning. Westover did this series to talk about what songs meant to the people who attend their church. If we know how songs impacted people individually, we will sing songs that aren't necessarily "our favorite songs" with a new meaning because it is ministering to someone and in turn it will minister to us. WOW.. to think that "my" singing could be ministering to someone.

Here is an example of a "behind the music" story:

(during the church service they showed a video of the members telling their story)

3 years ago a woman and her husband went to the doctor to find out that she had a mass in her abdomen that was going to have to be removed. She had already battled cancer 2 times before. This was a familiar road for them to go down however not a path that they wanted to tread on again. She was sacred... had 2 small children at home... etc.
The Wednesday before her surgery... they went to the Elders and had them pray over her. She specifically remembers one of the Elders kneeling down and in his prayer he asked that God would cover and protect and take care of them because GOD is ever present. Another Elder did the same thing but not only asked for protection for her but also for her small children. Then an Elder's wife sat and prayed with her and talked about God being a SHIELD for us. They attended church on the Sunday before her surgery and they "just happened" to sing "thou oh LORD are a shield about me" This woman felt God's presence and continued to feel that God was her shield. As she went home that night she" happened" to look up at her calendar which had scriptures and it listed Psalms 3: 3-4
Psalm 3:3-4 (New International Version)

3 But you are a shield around me, O LORD;
you bestow glory on me and lift [a] up my head.

4 To the LORD I cry aloud,
and he answers me from his holy hill.


After reading this she felt an ever surrounding presence that God was going to take care of her and her family. Her fear was lifted and the day she went in to surgery she knew it was all going to be ok. In the end it was OK.. she received great news, but also goes on to mention that even if she had not have received "good news" about her mass... that she knew God would have taken care of her no matter what.


God speaks to us in many ways. One of the ways that HE speaks to us is through song. This song is short, but it now holds more powerful meaning to me than ever before.


Thou, O LORD, are a shield about me, your my Glory and the Lifter of my head ...

I know that I am not the GREATEST singer, however I know that GOD delights in hearing me sing, especially when I get past the "going through the motions" of it and sing it with MEANING from my heart and mind.